In September 2018, our family’s life changed forever — not in the gentle, expected way that most parents imagine when they think about bringing a child into the world, but with an intensity that shook us to our core and reshaped our understanding of love, fear, and resilience.
When I was pregnant with my second child, Finlay, everything seemed perfect. My pregnancy had been smooth, routine, and filled with the kind of joyful anticipation that characterizes a healthy pregnancy. There were no complications, no warnings, no indication that our future was about to twist into something unimaginable. We were a family eagerly awaiting the newest member, fully blessed with health and excitement — or so we thought.
The day Finlay was born began like any other. He arrived via planned C-section due to his low birth weight. He weighed just 5 pounds 6 ounces — small, but breathing and alert. When the medical team placed him in my arms, he was a fragile and beautiful little boy… and yet there was something that didn’t feel quite right. His skin carried a bluish tint. The doctors said it was nothing unusual, just a sign he might be cold. “Keep him wrapped up,” they advised. “Nothing to worry about.” But in a mother’s heart, worry is not something easily dismissed.
And so began the first threads of fear — subtle, innocuous at first, but haunting all the same.
That night in the hospital was a blur of exhaustion and anxiety. Finlay was restless — unlike any newborn we had ever seen. He cried continuously, resisting every attempt to soothe him. Breastfeeding didn’t work; he struggled, sweating and gasping with effort. Every instinct in my body screamed that something was wrong, and yet each time I approached the nurses or doctors with my concerns, I was gently reassured that he was adjusting; it was colic, or reflux… just normal newborn behavior.
But my maternal intuition refused to be quiet.
By the next day, Finlay’s skin had taken on a yellowish hue, his tiny shoulders heaving with effort. Again, I voiced my concerns. Again, I was told nothing was seriously wrong. But as his discomfort grew more obvious, his lethargy deepened, and his cries became more urgent and unrelenting, I knew waiting was no longer an option.
When he was one week old and still struggling to feed, I took him back to the GP. We were given medicine for colic, then for reflux. A return visit was suggested only if nothing improved. As each hour passed, my worry escalated into distress. His condition was deteriorating, and no amount of reassurance was comforting my soul. There was a hollowness in my chest that came from deep within — a mother’s fear that something precious was slipping away, unnoticed.
By the time he was three weeks old, Finlay was not only crying constantly — he barely moved, barely fed, and had not gained a single ounce. I could see the pain in his tiny face. It was then that I returned to the doctor with urgency.
This time, my voice was heard.
The doctor’s expression changed the instant he examined Finlay. He noticed the pallor, the strained breathing, the hollow eyes that belonged to a child far more fragile than anyone had realized. Without hesitation, he said the words no parent ever wants to hear: “This isn’t normal. I’m referring him to the hospital immediately.”
Those words hit me like a tidal wave.
At the hospital, everything accelerated. Specialists surrounded us. Tests, machines, monitors — and then, the diagnosis that shattered our world and simultaneously gave us a thread of hope.
Finlay had Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA) — a congenital heart defect in which the two main arteries leaving the heart are reversed. This meant his oxygenated and deoxygenated blood were not circulating the way they should. On top of this, he had several holes in his heart, including a ventricular septal defect (VSD) — and one of these holes, ironcially, was the very thing that had kept him alive up until this point.
But now — that hole was closing, and Finlay’s heart was failing.
To hear that your newborn baby’s heart is not functioning properly is every parent’s worst nightmare. I felt as though the ground vanished beneath my feet. My little boy was tiny — so young, so vulnerable — yet already fighting a war inside his own body.
Suddenly, the room was filled with activity. A helicopter was called. Finlay was placed in a specialized transport incubator, surrounded by tubes and monitors that whirred with urgency. I remember watching that incubator being zipped up, sealing him inside … and feeling as though a steel shutter had slammed into my heart. I could not protect him. I could only hope.
The journey to the specialist hospital was a blur of sirens and mercy. When we finally arrived, the medical team whisked him away for immediate procedures. The first was something called a balloon septostomy, a temporary but vital surgery that reopened the closing hole in his heart, allowing for the mixing of blood that would, for the moment, keep him alive.
It was risky — but without it, there was no chance at all.
We waited. And then the news came: the procedure was a success. Finlay was stabilizing. There was hope.
But even that hope was fragile.
The very next day, Finlay was prepped for open-heart surgery. I walked him down the sterile corridors, holding his tiny hand and trying to summon every ounce of strength I possessed — strength that felt like it was slipping through my fingers with every step.
The surgery lasted eight agonizing hours — eight hours that felt like an eternity measured in silent prayers and quiet tears. My husband and I paced the halls, clinging to each other, straining to believe we would see our son again.
When the surgeons finally spoke to us, their faces were tired but calm — and they said the words that transformed despair into joy: “The surgery was successful.”
But then came the ICU.
To see him afterward — wires attached, tubes supporting every breath — it was almost more than I could bear. Yet even in that fragile state, I saw something that no words can fully explain: strength.
He was fighting.
Over the next days, we watched him slowly awaken from the haze of surgery, each tiny twitch and breath a testament to his will to survive. And eventually — after eight days in the ICU — we were able to take him home.
Home — not as the terrified parents who once walked into that hospital uncertain of what lay ahead — but as a family forever changed, forever humbled, and forever grateful for the miracle that was Finlay.
Today, Finlay is a thriving, joyful two-year-old with a heart strong enough to laugh, play, and grow beyond what doctors once called “survival odds.” If you saw him now, you would never guess the battle he fought in those fragile first weeks of life.
This journey taught me more about courage and resilience than any book, film, or story ever could. It taught me that hope is something you hold onto with every breath, even in moments when the world feels unbearably heavy. It taught me that love — fierce, unrelenting love — can carry you through the hardest nights of your life.
And most importantly, it taught me that miracles are real — not because they defy reality, but because they are born from human bravery, medical skill, and unwavering faith.
Finlay’s fight was not just a medical battle — it was the story of a family who refused to give up, a community that offered strength, and a little boy who refused to be defined by the odds against him.
Every day with Finlay is a gift. And every heartbeat he makes is a reminder that hope triumphs when we choose to believe, even when all hope seems lost.